


Of Crusts and Crumbs

by thinlizzy2



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hydra, Post-Episode: s01e17 Turn Turn Turn, Rough Sex, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:44:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melinda May has never asked for much, but always taken what little she could have.  Snapshots from a doomed romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To go with the drift of things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mirime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirime/gifts).



This is what they can have:

Kisses stolen between long stretches of studying and sparring, the feel of soft lips and warm skin such a sweet contrast to the sharp violence of their chosen lives. They never have long; both their SOs demand the best and the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy is no place for slackers, not even ones in love. But Melinda and Victoria are both enterprising young women with healthy doses of disrespect for rules that make no sense to them. So they duck into broom closets when they know the janitors have finished for the day, slip into showers after hours to get soapy and slick together and, on the rare occasions that they can scrounge up enough cash, bribe their roommates to bunk together for a whole night so that they have hours - full sleepless glorious _hours _\- to be together.__

__"I can't wait until graduation", Victoria sighs, as Melinda raises herself up from between her lover's legs and flops down on the pillow next to hers. "We'll get assigned somewhere where we can officially request to share quarters; it'll make everything so much easier."_ _

__Melinda kisses her forehead tenderly and smiles; Victoria is as sweaty as she gets after a good three or four practice rounds in the combat simulation room. She finds that particular shine on the other girl's skin highly erotic; it makes working out together a delicious form of foreplay. But there's a patronizing note to her smile that she hopes Victoria doesn't notice. Unlike her girlfriend, Melinda grew up in covert operations. She knows that nothing gets easier when people move from cadet to agent. But Victoria is so determined to believe that they just need to get through the next few months before they can properly be together, at least at night. Melinda can't quite bring herself to debate the issue._ _

__Besides, Victoria's optimism is another thing that she happens to find very sexy._ _

__So she slides two of Victoria's fingers into her mouth, getting them good and wet. Not strictly necessary - Melinda's own body is more than ready - but she loves the taste of Victoria far too much to turn down any opportunity to partake. As she lies back and draws her knees up to her shoulders, she even lets herself think that Victoria might be right. It's not impossible, is it? No more impossible, as least, than anything else their lives will contain._ _

__Certainly no more impossible than the love they've already found._ _


	2. To yield with a grace to reason

This is what they can have:

Vacations, Victoria promises. Long sun-baked vacations when they'll lie on the beach together all day and lie spent in each other's arms all night. And then, once they've established themselves a bit, a permanent base of operations that they can share together when they're not on assignment. It'll have to be close to the Hub and approved by S.H.I.E.L.D. security (Victoria is, apparently, going to be important enough to need that now) but nevertheless it will be a real home and it'll be theirs. Melinda can be patient, right? Surely she can wait a little bit for a payoff that sweet.

Melinda nods her head at the appropriate moments and never lets on that she's seen all this before. 

She remembers her father packing his bags and making vows. Six months, a year, no more than two years. Then he'd be back and they could be a proper family. And with the extra money this assignment would bring in, his wife could hire a nanny and even go on some assignments of her own. If she could get some of her freedom back then she wouldn't need to be so unhappy all the time. Melinda's mother had snapped that it wasn't taking care of their daughter that was making her miserable and even though she supposes a normal child would have been relieved, Melinda only remembers feeling disappointed. If she _had_ been the problem, then she could have helped. She could have just gone away.

So she arranges her face into something that resembles dumb compliance. It says a lot that Victoria doesn't recognize the act for what it is. 

Or maybe she does, but is satisfied with just the act. That would say a lot too.

It's strange, but whenever Melinda had pictured this scene she had always been the one packing to go. She would have struggled with it, she knows, debating the possibility of refusing orders up until the last minute. She would have gone, in the end, but it would have been agony.

Maybe it's easier this way. Now she has no choice to make.

"I'll call you every night", Victoria swears. "At eight sharp. And I'll fly home at least one weekend a month, or fly you to me. It won't be long, anyway - not in the greater scheme of things. Six months, maybe. Possibly a year."

And Melinda completes the refrain like an old nursery rhyme from childhood, the syllables worn into her brain through mindless repetition. "No more than two."


	3. And bow and accept the end

This is what they can have:

Pain and betrayal and longing. They're all competing for Melinda's attention and they're making her head throb.

Melinda slams Victoria up against the wall, hard enough to know she's causing bruises. She uses her teeth in the kiss, draws blood, and even though the salt-and-iron tang makes her shiver with disgust she doesn't stop.

Victoria gives as good as she gets, scratching at Melinda's back in her frenzy to get her shirt off and then scoring the skin with deeper marks as soon as she can touch it. She grinds herself against the thigh that Melinda has shoved between between her legs and groans. "God… _you_ ,"

"Shut up", Melinda hisses, pinching a nipple much too hard and then biting it for good measure. She's going to make Victoria come and she going to make her cry and she really doesn't care what order she does those things in. "No talking."

But Victoria has always been better at giving orders than taking them. "I wouldn't have let them die. You know that. I knew you would-"

Melinda gets Victoria's skirt hiked up around her hips. She's wearing hold-up stockings, not tights, so that's one less thing to worry about. Pulling aside her underpants, Melinda gets three fingers into her at once, and the shocked gasp is the first thing that lets her know that she's not wasting her time.

That this does, in fact, hurt.

"You know nothing." Melinda twists her fingers around, spreads them as much as she can in that hot tight space. "And apparently I know even less".

Victoria pushes herself down, trying to rub her clit against Melinda's thumb. Melinda repositions her hand to make it impossible. Victoria will get off in the way that _she_ chooses, and only when _she_ says so. "You'd have let Fitz die", she insists. She pushes her fingers in half an inch more and then pulls them back almost instantly. She hopes that unfulfilled promise stings. "He's a smart sweet kid. He's got a bright future, a pretty girl he loves; he'd never hurt anyone. You'd have killed him. And Ward…"

"The one you're fucking?" Melinda stares at Victoria. Her former lover's eyes are glazed with lust but there's a spark there too; she's not just going to let herself get lost in this. "Or the one you wish you were fucking? I can't tell, Melinda. Which is it? Does he get to make you scream, like I used to? Do you think about him when you touch yourself?"

Melinda doesn't bother pointing that she can do as she likes or that she and Victoria have been finished for years. Instead, she exploits what she thinks may be a rare weakness in Victoria's armor. "Is that why you did it?" With her free hand, Melinda grabs a fistfull of Victoria's ass and squeezes hard. "You're _jealous_?

"Yes!" The word explodes from Victoria's mouth in a potent blend of pleasure and pain. "Yes, of course I'm jealous! I hate him and I hate that you want him, I'm not denying that. But I _still_ wouldn't have let him die, Melinda." She struggles for breath. "I want to, but I wouldn't."

There's a tone in her voice which Melinda recognizes. Victoria Hand is telling the truth.

Melinda bends her fingers and presses hard against Victoria's G-spot. She comes, going limp with Melinda's fingers still deep inside her.

Melinda wouldn't stay with her even if Victoria were to ask. So there's no point in waiting around for the request.


	4. Of a love or a season

This is what they can have. It's all that they'll ever be able to have, now.

It's a beautiful morning and the park is lovely. The grass has been newly cut and smells sweet; the roses are twisting against their stakes like images from a watercolor painting. The fountains burble softly and even though the sun is barely up it's already promising to be an unusually warm spring day.

Soon, there will be children riding their bikes along the paths and teenagers running around the various sports areas. Old couples will sit on the benches and sip sweet tea and talk about nothing at all, in keeping with patterns that are decades old and worn as soft and comfortable as the cotton sheets on their beds.

Melinda never pictured herself and Victoria here, elderly ladies hand in hand. By the time they met they had already chosen lives that didn't include much leisure. 

Lives that were likely to be short.

It's pointless to be sad for something she never had a chance of attaining, but there's a lot of pointlessness happening at the moment so what's a little more?

Ward did this, and it sickens her. He'll pay for that; Melinda will make sure of it. Grand Ward will pay dearly, in all the ways that Melinda's far too creative mind can conjure up, for taking Victoria from this world. And what's more, he will pay for the possibilities he's stolen.

Because even without parks and tea and gentle routines, there could have been love. She is certain of that. Even with all the hurt they'd caused each other and all the damage still left to do. Not happiness, neither of them had ever been much for happiness, but with time and shouted accusations, with forgiveness and painful apologies, there could have been years and years of love.

Maybe there had been.

She lets the tears fall, she's not ashamed. But nor is she inclined to waste time. Melinda knows she can't linger here. She is a soldier with a war to fight and a knight with a dragon to kill. But she is also a lover with a last duty to perform, so she chooses a place - the crest of a small hill - and takes the lid off the jar.

She scatters the ashes to the wind and lets Victoria go.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mirime for Rare Pair Fest 2014. It was hard to choose between all the great May pairings, but I hope you like what I eventually came up with. 
> 
> The chapter titles come from Reluctance by Robert Frost.


End file.
